To Sklyansky: Send Smirnov (Rev[olutionary] Military Council 5) a cipher.

Cipher

Do not spread any news about Kolchak, do not print exactly anything, and after we occupy Irkutsk send a strictly official telegram explaining that the local authorities before our arrival did so and so under the influence of the threat of Kappel and the danger of White Guard conspiracies in Irkutsk1.

Lenin. Signature also in cipher

1) do you undertake to do it reliably?

2) where is Tukhachevsky?

3) how are things on the Caucasian front?

4) in the Crimea?

Published - The Trotsky papers. 1917-1922. V. II, p. 30.

Fund 2, op. 1, d. 24362 - autograph.

January 14, 1920 Admiral A.V. Kolchak issued a decree on the approval of A.I. Denikin in the rank of "Supreme Ruler of the Russian State" and on the transfer of full power in the territory of the Russian eastern periphery - G.M. Semenov. On January 5 Kolchak disbanded his guards and placed himself in the Allied train, guarded by Czechoslovaks. On January 15 at Innokentyevskaya station (near Irkutsk) the Czechoslovak military contingent handed over Kolchak and the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Omsk government V.N.Pepelyaev to the local authorities - the Political Center, consisting of SRs and Mensheviks. On January 21 in Irkutsk, power passed to the Bolshevik Revolutionary Committee. February 6, 1920. The Irkutsk Revolutionary Committee sentenced Kolchak and Pepelyaev to be shot. On the morning of February 7, the sentence was carried out.

I.N.Smirnov fulfilled the directive of V.I.Lenin. In the newspaper "Pravda" on March 6, 1920, № 51, p. 2 published his telegram with a message about the abandonment of the last Czech echelons on the night of March 1 to 2 Irkutsk and the entry into the city on March 5 of the Red Army (part of the 5th Army) and the execution of Kolchak. He wrote that the Irkutsk Revolutionary Committee had information about the preparation of a counter-revolutionary performance of officers with "the aim of overthrowing the government and releasing Admiral Kolchak, who was arrested by the Czechs and then handed over to the revolutionary authorities. Unable to communicate with the Siberian Revolutionary Committee due to damage to the telegraph wires of Irkutsk, the revolutionary committee in its meeting of February 7, in order to prevent a clash, decided to shoot Admiral Kolchak. The Sibrevkom was not informed of this decision for the reason mentioned above. The sentence was carried out on the same day".